Sgt. Salvatore J. Cassaro Receives the Flag of Boston

Sgt. Salvatore J. Cassaro was a West Ender who served in the United States Army during the Korean War. Mayor John Hynes honored Cassaro’s request for a flag of the City of Boston that he could fly over his gun position, demonstrating pride in where he came from.

Sergeant Salvatore J. Cassaro was born in 1924 to Louis and Louise Cassaro in the West End. Salvatore grew up on 37 South Margin St., and he worked at his father’s bakery (called Cassaro Bakery, also on South Margin) while attending St. Joseph’s Parochial School (on McLean Street in the old West End) and Boston College High School. He left BC High in 1942 to enlist in the Army and serve in World War Two. In 1944, Cassaro’s company was trapped at the Battle of the Bulge, a major German offensive, but he was able to return home after being safely discharged. He continued to work at the family bakery even after Louis retired and sold his stake to Salvatore’s uncle. In October 1950, Cassaro volunteered for the Army and requested deployment to Korea, months after the US joined a multilateral military intervention by the UN in Korea’s civil war. 

While Cassaro was serving in the 7th Infantry Division, he sent a letter to Boston’s Mayor John Hynes, in March of 1951, with a special request: he asked for a Boston flag that he could fly atop his unit’s gun position. Cassaro noted his fellow soldiers from Texas, California, Pennsylvania, and Chicago, Illinois who flew their own flags with pride, and wrote that he and other Bostonians in Korea were “just envious and…wish you can find it possible to remedy this feeling.” Hynes responded with a directive on March 30, 1951 to send two flags of the City of Boston as special-delivery mail to Cassaro. 

This story made front-page news in the Boston Globe on March 31, 1951, and pictured both Cassaro and the flag that he received.